Whatever Happened to Respecting Your Parents?

By Tina Gilbertson LPC, BC-TMH on June 15, 2019 in Constructive Wallowing

How do parents get respect from a generation that grew up not respecting their elders?


I often hear variations on that lament from estranged parents, and understandably so. They’re confused and frustrated with their adult children’s apparent disregard for the basic rules of social conduct that the parents learned when they were children… and could have sworn they passed along.

It’s especially confusing when we realize that, in reality, respect has always had to be earned. But in the olden days, we showed respect even when we didn’t feel it, and when it hadn’t been earned through respectable behavior.

The question of respecting parents (“Honor thy father and thy mother,” in Biblical terms) arises in part because of the ever-present confusion in our society between behavior and emotion.

Is respect something we do? Or is it something we feel?


https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/constructive-wallowing/201906/whatever-happened-respecting-your-parents